The world we live in has gotten crazy in a matter of just a few very short years. It wasn’t that long ago; most of us were minding our business, and then COVID hit. Now, the tensions between Russia and Ukraine have finally gotten to the breaking point.
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Late last night, Russia made a move to invade Ukraine with Vladimir Putin giving justifying it as assisting the people of Ukraine. The United States has moved by placing sanctions on Russia and condemning its military action. We’re far from equipped to talk about the politics of this whole situation, but one thing we do know is that concerns of cyberattacks and cyberwar are genuine.
Russia is already launching cyberattacks against Ukraine, but experts agree that countries that support Ukraine may also be a target. Russia has launched DDoS attacks to limit or cripple the internet capability of the Ukraine government.
“This was probably to be expected as course of action. On the surface the denial of service is a fairly old tried and trusted attack mechanism. Many if not most of the ISP’s have put in place mechanism to detect and prevent against this. The use of this mechanism in the current context is concerning. Websites are just front facing applications for much larger and complex systems. The inability of some of these organizations to function in the time of a crisis can be very concerning. Of course, the next step in this line of attack would be to get access to sensitive information stored by these entities. That information would be critical to get visibility into actions and plans. Organizations, addition to working with their ISP’s, must embrace end-to-end encryption. Keeping the data protected not only while “at rest’ and in transit, need to keep data encrypted “in use” eliminating any risk of such data falling into the hands of unauthorized third parties.”
Purandar Das – CEO and Co-founder of Sotero
Another way we will see cyberwar within this conflict is with propaganda. There will be plenty of misinformation and disinformation being spread all over. It is far more challenging to discern between what’s true and what’s not in the internet age.
“Preventing the spread of disinformation is going to be key, especially in the US. Information and digital literacy are fundamental to ensuring that we aren’t part of the problem. This means only sharing things from vetted sources because both sides of the conflict will be creating fake social media accounts that share outdated images and videos. The key: if you agree with something too much? Be wary.
Russia has always used cyber tactics as part of its military strategies. It may be using them to distract us from what we see in the news. It may be using them to stymie Ukrainian and Ukrainian allies, preventing them from sharing information or responding to these attacks.
Karen Walsh – CEO and Founder at Allegro Solutions
Early detection will be key to disabling Russia from weaponizing digital resources. Companies need to be able to detect and investigate as quickly as possible to make sure that they aren’t used by Russia as part of their military exploits.”
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